Choi Si-won recommends history book: 'Cold, bitter past must be faced head-on'

Choi Si-won of K-pop group Super Junior, who has drawn attention for his conservative public stances, is turning heads again after recommending a history book and urging fans who enjoy history to give it a read.

Choi posted on his social media account Sunday, sharing his thoughts on "100 Scenes of Vanished Modern History," written by Park Jong-in, a senior reporter at the Chosun Ilbo. "If one seeks only comfort and a sense of victory through false fantasy, that cold and bitter history will ultimately repeat itself — this line resonated with me deeply," he wrote.

"No matter how cold and bitter the history, we can only move forward by facing it as it is," Choi said in the post. "Only then can we prevent future generations from repeating the same history. That was the thought that stayed with me most throughout reading this book."

He added that the book contains stories rarely found in school textbooks. "The more I read, the more dismayed and angry I feel," he wrote, calling it "a book everyone must read."

Earlier this year, Choi drew similar attention on Feb. 19, when former President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to life in prison at his first trial on insurrection charges related to the Dec. 3 emergency martial law declaration. Choi posted a four-character hanja idiom on his account — "불의필망, 토붕와해," romanized as "burui pilmang, tobung wahae."

The phrase means "the unjust will surely perish, and their foundations will crumble."

At the time, conservative YouTuber Jeon Han-gil, a former Korean history instructor, praised Choi as "a celebrity with integrity and genuine passion, someone with a burning soul," and called on his followers to support Choi so he could "become a truly popular entertainer representing South Korea."